


English Class

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: (at least he recognizes himself as one), English is hard, Gen, Kagami is frustrated, Tatsuya is a stalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5462279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kagami's English grades have been the butt of many an incredulous characters' jokes and tirades. But, as always, there /is/ a reason he has those grades in that class despite his years abroad.</p><p>And then Tatsuya becomes involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**  School ran me over like a truck and I was the poor, tiny creature that became road kill. And then I got to fly back home for Winter Break and suddenly had time. And did I use this to write more for my chapter fics? No, of course not. Thanks, Muse.

Still, have a fic for the Non-denominaitonal Gift Giving Season.

 **Warnings:**  Slight language and bashing of the American school system as I have experienced it. Mostly because Heaven knows I didn't learn grammar in English class.

I also have no idea how they teach ESL classes, so please take that portion with a block of salt and correct me if I'm wrong,  _please_.

 **Dedication:**  To all those who went abroad or grew up in a home speaking a different language and were faced with the reality that writing was  _so much harder_  because you could speak the other language...but it's a bit different, using it in a setting beyond conversations.

* * *

 

Okay, Kagami knows that he lived in the US, spoke English at school for years, and that all this means something.

 

It just doesn't mean what everyone _thinks_ it should mean.

 

Yeah, he can speak fluent English and knows English (or at least LA) slang, but for the life of him he can't tell you what the conjugation of a verb is in English (do they even _conjugate verbs in English?_ ).  Can't really do that in Japanese either, but at least they've been teaching them that in school instead of just going "oh, you had decent scored in your English classes, you'll be fine!"

 

Like hell!!

 

He's pretty sure that a good portion of his class didn't even know what nouns were by the time he left and that was at the end of middle school!

 

Because English class was always show up, read a book, discuss said book, move on.  Study for the standardized tests that were a pain and a half to deal with, and which are supposed to test if you can string a sentence together and if following directions was something you could do.  Could you bubble in letters with the best of them? And if you could that was great, you got a good grade.

 

(Coming back to realize that, yeah, he was _still_ technically in middle school, was not a happy realization. Especially when he thought about the basketball situation back then.)

 

Obviously, none of his stellar English teachers bothered to sit him down and explain what the heck an infinitive was. Isn’t that like infinity? Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story, right?

 

"Bakagami!!! Are you even listening?"

 

Coach whacks him with a book.

 

"Ow!  Yeah I am! Stop abusing your players! That’s illegal!"

 

"If you were listening, then tell me about the subjunctive case!"

 

"What?"  No, seriously, _what the hell_?

 

"Aha!  You WERE'NT listening!"

 

"The fuck is the subjunctive case???"

 

"HOW DID YOU LIVE IN AMERICA FOR SO LONG AND NOT KNOW!" The team shouts at him.

 

Like, thanks guys, make him feel so much better.

 

"IT'S NOT LIKE THEY WERE ASKING ME THESE QUESTIONS WHEN WE WERE PLAYING BASKETBALL!"

 

"Is that the only thing you learned there?!" The team collectively asks in exasperated disappointment. Kagami can practically see the large sweat-drops forming on their heads.

 

"No!  But even in ESL, you know, English as a Second Language, they didn't really talk about the different functions of shit cuz they were trying to make sure that we were able to communicate and read and stuff! And then after that it's not like it helped that much and I could just bug Tatsuya if I needed an explanation because he would actually explain it.

 

“And my actual English teachers were talking about plot and character development and shit like that and Hamburger essays. Like what the hell were those supposed to teach us anyways?  It just made me hungry!"

 

Kagami really should take to keeping a pin in his bag to test the whole "you could hear a pin drop" thing between Kuroko's random info bombs and now this.  Missed opportunities, he mourns them so.

 

(Ok, so mostly it's a bet that he made with Tatsuya ages ago and he's not even sure Tatsuya remembers, but _he's going to win this one damn it_.)

 

"Okay, Kagami-kun.  Do you know what a 'noun' is?" Coach asks, while Captain takes Izuki out with an elbow to the side before more puns can come up and further derail the study session.

 

"'A noun is a person, place, or thing.'"

 

Thank you Twenty Questions and School House Rock, saviors of his understanding of the English language.

 

At least the team stops harassing him about his English grade…but instead he gets super remedial lessons, so he’s not sure they’re all that much better.

 

But, at least the team knows where he’s coming from now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tatsuya's involvement.

Tatsuya isn't actually a nice person.

 

Well, okay, he could be worse, but like seriously he has a few personality quirks that's probably put him on the "not quite" side of nice.

 

Case in point, that match against Taiga the other day.

 

(Yes, he can acknowledge in hindsight that he probably should have actually _explained_ what he meant to his pseudo younger brother, and not just expected him to understand.  He's only had to deal with that kid's inability to socialize at a level beyond toddler for three years.  The number of times he's had to prevent his friend from getting in a fight over basketball during a street game over one call or another is seriously outrageous.)

 

So yeah, he totally stalked Taiga back to Japan.

 

The idiot didn't even tell Tatsuya which middle school he was transferring to, so obviously as his older brother figure, Tatsuya had to find out.  It may or may not have involved some hacking and a little bit of breaking and entering.

 

It was for a good cause, and he didn't get caught, so it all worked out.

 

Besides, the school clearly needed to update their security system and it's not like Tatsuya is doing something _malicious_ with the information.  He's just...going to check on his younger brother.

 

(Yes, he knows that these actions, coupled with his later move to Japan and subsequent enrollment in a school that is guaranteed to play his brother's school if he gets far enough could be classified as stalking.)

 

But hey, look, he's brother's settling in pretty well it seems, even if his grades are a, well, bad as they always were but considering that only his English grade has gotten worse, Tatsuya will take it.  Especially because it's not like Tatsuya doesn't understand what the problem is, now being faced with his own English class.

 

"Himuro-san, please explain the use of the word "like" in a sentence."

 

"Sensei, do you mean formally, informally, or both?"

 

"Formally!  We do not use it informally in this class!"

 

Tatsuya sighs mentally. "But, Sensei, isn't the purpose of this class to teach us conversational skills?"

 

Yeah, class went downhill from there.

 

"TATSUYA! Why is your English grade so low?!"

 

"Ah, Coach.  Well the teacher did not appreciate me inquiring as to why we weren't dealing with informal speech as well as formal speech.  She has since decided that anything I say is wrong, and did not appreciate the notes I'd made about how our textbook could be improved for both clarity and conciseness."

 

"So she isn't giving you the proper grades, is that right?"

 

"More or less, Coach."

 

"...Alright! You're going to prove that you are a far more capable teacher than her, which will be all the principal should need as evidence."

 

'I'm not sure that's how it's supposed to go...' Tatsuya thinks, but keeps it to himself.  Instead he asks, "who would I be tutoring?"

 

"Your idiot younger brother figure -- according to the Seirin Coach, you helped him in America and none of her players can help him quite as well as you did with English."

 

"Wouldn't that be seen as a set up, if it's common knowledge that we were friends and I used to help him?" Tatsuya can already see how this plan could fall through and he isn't even trying....

 

Coach grins.  "But no one outside Seirin and Yousen basketball teams _know_. And it's not like you went to the same schools--just played street basketball together, so there are no real records of that unless someone decides to track down the lady who coached you two, but I'm sure you can give her a heads up."

 

"Yes, Coach."

 

Alex taught him well -- never argue with a woman about her basketball team, players, or students.

 

Anyways, this is apparently how Tatsuya ends up tutoring Taiga, again, in English.  He also apparently ends up tutoring half of Seirin's team, too, and half of Yousen, who have been sentenced to join the tutoring session due to their own scores.

 

Still, he really wishes Atsushi didn't decide that having Kuroko read to him counted as studying English.  Mostly because Atsushi gets Kuroko to begin reading within the hour and now he can’t use Kuroko’s story time as an incentive for the rest of the group to learn their grammar. At least when it was just Taiga and him, the basketball was an incentive he could control to a degree….

 

But, for a relatively emotionless kid, Kuroko did the voices of different characters incredibly well, and his reading was quite fluid, and emotion was clearly conveyed, adding to the tone and suspense of the novel.

 

""'She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly with a slight jingle and a flash of barbarous ornaments....'"

 

(Tatsuya is _not_ looking at the symbolism of _Heart of Darkness_ as Kuroko is reading it to one of the Generation of Miracles. There are some things that even he doesn’t need to think about.)

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a review, please?
> 
> And as always, feel free to poke me on my tumblr, fins-illusion.


End file.
